Post by tkorrovi on Aug 16, 2008 2:17:44 GMT -5
Just a quick reference www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080813175509.htm
This is yet another experiment using neurons taken from the rat's brain, the previos one was described in this forum as well. Such experiments certainly have an immense importance for Artificial Consciousness research, as they show how the real neurons work, and the experiments seems to show that the real neurons are different, much more flexible and much less restricted than the artificial neurons.
It though somewhat doesn't look serious that they gave their system a form of a robot, as much more experiments could been done with the rat's neurons by just connecting them with the computer. Making a physical robot in that case is likely completely unnecessary for science, and likely necessary only for show. But what is more disappointing than that, is that nothing was written in that article about the results of the experiments with that robot. Why such thing can be interesting for Artificial Consciousness are exactly the results of the experiments. Knowing that someone somewhere built some kind of robot and seeing a picture of it may be exciting for common people, but unfortunately has no value whatsoever for these who want to do any scientific research. They should stop moving to direction of assuming the readers of articles about science to be typical ignorant laymen.
Now for these who only casually read this. There are experiments done in neuroscience, and about some of these, quite detail experiment data is available, but almost all these experiments are about the activity of the living brain, such as neuroscanning. But a brain is too complex to make much conclusions based on these experiments, about the functionality of single neurons. Some conclusions though can be made, like such experiments seem to indicate that neurons in brain react to change, rather than to a static image. But what i talked about are the experiments with single neurons or with artificially made networks of a small number of neurons. These neurons are mostly taken from the brain of a dead rat or mouse, as it is not considered ethical to do the experiments with human neurons. Such experiments can show the functionality of single neurons, but as i said, not many of such experiments have been done, and almost no data about such experiments is available.
This is yet another experiment using neurons taken from the rat's brain, the previos one was described in this forum as well. Such experiments certainly have an immense importance for Artificial Consciousness research, as they show how the real neurons work, and the experiments seems to show that the real neurons are different, much more flexible and much less restricted than the artificial neurons.
It though somewhat doesn't look serious that they gave their system a form of a robot, as much more experiments could been done with the rat's neurons by just connecting them with the computer. Making a physical robot in that case is likely completely unnecessary for science, and likely necessary only for show. But what is more disappointing than that, is that nothing was written in that article about the results of the experiments with that robot. Why such thing can be interesting for Artificial Consciousness are exactly the results of the experiments. Knowing that someone somewhere built some kind of robot and seeing a picture of it may be exciting for common people, but unfortunately has no value whatsoever for these who want to do any scientific research. They should stop moving to direction of assuming the readers of articles about science to be typical ignorant laymen.
Now for these who only casually read this. There are experiments done in neuroscience, and about some of these, quite detail experiment data is available, but almost all these experiments are about the activity of the living brain, such as neuroscanning. But a brain is too complex to make much conclusions based on these experiments, about the functionality of single neurons. Some conclusions though can be made, like such experiments seem to indicate that neurons in brain react to change, rather than to a static image. But what i talked about are the experiments with single neurons or with artificially made networks of a small number of neurons. These neurons are mostly taken from the brain of a dead rat or mouse, as it is not considered ethical to do the experiments with human neurons. Such experiments can show the functionality of single neurons, but as i said, not many of such experiments have been done, and almost no data about such experiments is available.